“How about a break?” she said, finally. “Coffee?”
“Sounds great.”
She went to the wall behind her desk and slid back a panel. There was a small stove and refrigerator behind it. A French coffeemaker was sitting over a low flame. She poured coffee into two bone china cups and put them on matching saucers.
“How do you take it?”
“Two sugars, a splash of milk.”
She dropped a couple of cubes of sugar into one cup and got a bottle of real cream out of the refrigerator.
“Will cream be alright? I’ve never been much for milk.”
“I’ll just take the cream, forget the coffee.”
She laughed then, a genuine laugh that came from somewhere around her ankles.
“This is quite a setup,” I said. “Do all VPs have offices this cushy?”
She turned the framed photo around. It was a shot of Millicent and Sutherland in tennis togs. He had his arm around her waist.
“Only if you play tennis with the boss,” she said.
“Oh,” is all I could think to say.
“Of course, it helps if the boss is your father.”
I almost swallowed my tongue.
“It’s been fun watching your deductive brain at work,” she said with a smile, and leaned back in her chair. “Are you usually this impulsive drawing conclusions?”
I could feel my face turning color.
“I hope not,” I said. “If I am, there are a lot of innocent men dancing to the piper.”
She cocked her head slightly.
“Dancing to the piper,” I repeated, “means doing time. Prison. Look, I’m sorry I misjudged things. I’ve never seen a woman executive with an office this impressive. Or one dressed like you are.”
“Well, there aren’t too many of us around-yet. But that’ll change, so you may as well get accustomed to it.”
“Suits me fine,” I said. I nodded toward the radio. “What kind of music do you like, classical?”
“I like classical.”
“Tchaikovsky?”
She smiled, the kind of smile that made me feel I wasn’t in on the joke.
“Is that the way I strike you? Tchaikovsky?”
“Well, who then?”
“Actually I prefer Tommy Dorsey although I think Miller’s easier to dance to. And Duke Ellington when I’m blue.”
This time I didn’t even try to disguise my surprise? “Dorsey, huh? You must be a Sinatra fan.”
“Buddy Rich.”
“You’re a drum freak, then?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice.
“Always have been.”
“Then you know Krupa’s the man. He makes Rich sound like he’s using chicken bones for drumsticks.”
She scowled. “Krupa’s all technique. Buddy has the speed and punch, and he’s far more inventive.”
“I never argue with a woman, but you’re wrong.”
“I never argue with a policeman, but you’re wrong.”
I was dying for a cigarette but there wasn’t an ashtray in sight.
“Look, I’m about to get the heebie-jeebies for a smoke. Mind if I step outside for a couple of minutes?”
She opened a drawer and produced a china bowl that looked like it was on loan from a museum.
“You really want me to put ashes in this?” I asked, taking out the makings.
“It’s an ashtray,” she said. “Here, try one of mine.”
They were Sherman Select, an inch longer than regular cigarettes and half as thick, with a gold filter on the end. The paper was light blue. Three bucks a carton if they cost a penny. The gold case they were in cost more than Verna Wilensky’s house.
She got up, walked around the desk, produced a gold Dunhill lighter, and lit my cigarette. The tobacco was mild and sweet, not harsh like the Prince Albert pipe tobacco I used.
“Thanks.”
I took a couple of good drags and let the smoke hang around in my lungs before I blew it out.
“It’ll take about three of these to get one good smoke,” I said.
She chuckled. “My grandfather used to roll his own.”
“I like to roll ’em. Sometimes it gives you a little time to think when you’re kicking wits around with some bohunk.” Her face went blank again. “Interrogating some hooligan. That’s before we take him to the back room and go to work on him with a rubber hose.”
She laughed again, this time without taking her eyes off mine.
“Let me get back to business for a minute,” I said, and took the safe deposit key from my vest pocket. “Can we make use of this?”
She stared at the key for a long time. A safe deposit box is supposed to be sacred, except, of course, if the G-men want to take a peek.
“I can get a court order to go into the box,” I explained, “but all I’m looking for is a lead. The state boys will come snooping around soon enough when they get a whiff of what’s involved here.”
“I take it you and the state boys don’t get along.”
“I’ve got nothing against them except where this kind of thing is concerned. Somebody’s got a right to that estate and for my money it isn’t the state of California.”
“Maybe she left it to her dog,” she said, and then suddenly jerked straight up. “My God, what’s happened to Rosebud?”
“He’s bunking in with me temporarily, until I find some of Verna’s relatives who’ll take him on. It was that or the pound.”
“You took Rosebud in?”
“He wouldn’t have it any other way. I offered to get him a cabana at the Beverly Hills Hotel but he preferred slumming with me.”
She crooked her finger. I followed her out onto the floor of the bank to the vault. A uniformed guard was sitting on a stool reading Argosy magazine. When he saw Millicent Harrington, he jumped up as if a bug had bitten his rear end.
“George, my friend wants to visit his safe deposit box. Why don’t you just sit back down and read your book, I’ll take him back.”
“Geez, Miss Harrington, I’m sorry. It’s been a real slow day and..”
“I won’t tell if you don’t, George,” she said. She led me back to the stainless-steel box room, found the matching key on a hook, and went down the row of stainless steel drawers until we got to the right number. She put both keys in, opened the door, and took out the metal strongbox. It was small, the smallest size available.
“Not much in here,” she said, after leading me to a private room where we could examine the contents.
It was a bust. Just some love letters tied with red ribbon. I flipped slowly through them. All of them were from Frank, all to “Vernie my love”: birthday cards, Christmas cards, some just telling her how much he had missed her during the day. Frank was a real romantic. I could understand why Verna Wilensky had wanted to die when he was killed.
The last one was different.
The envelope was yellow with age and there was no writing on it. Inside was a yellowed sheet, the ink faded and almost illegible. All it said was “Two more days. I can hardly wait.” I looked at the back and checked the envelope once more. Nothing else.
“What do you make of that?” she asked.
“Who knows? Not the same handwriting as Frank’s. Pretty old, judging from the fading and all. Maybe she was seeing somebody before him.”
“Loretta Clark might know.”
“Her neighbor?”
“She came in with Verna occasionally,” she said. “Nice lady. Verna called her ‘Sis.’ ”
“She told me.”
There was nothing else of consequence in the box.
I put the note back in the envelope and returned the pile to the box and we put it back in the vault.
“By the way, what’s your first name?”
“Zeke. My friends call me Zee.”
“I’m Millie.”
“Millie Harrington?”
My eyebrows asked the question.
“I was married once, right out of college. It was mostly rebellion, I guess. My father hated him. His mother hated me. And it turned out we weren’t all that crazy about each other. So after six months we decided to go our separate ways. It was very amicable. We decided not to trade money. We used to call each other occasionally, but that eventually died of attrition. I haven’t seen him in a couple of years.”